Rehab chief is entitled to 35% salary bonus

Disability charity boss Angela Kerins is entitled to a 35% salary bonus every year worth over €84,000 — and has claimed her pay packet should be 20% higher than its current €240,000 rate.

The shock figures were revealed during a mammoth seven-hour Dáil Public Accounts Committee meeting with the Rehab chief executive yesterday.

Speaking to the cross-party watchdog, the controversial official said the disability charity — which receives €83m in State funds every year — is a private entity and as such the payments are not of public concern.

She said her legal team had advised the PAC on Wednesday night about these “parameters”.

After repeating a statement at the start of this month that her salary is €240,000, with pension and car allowance entitlements bringing the pay package to €272,000, Ms Kerins said no further information on the issue would be released.

However, under questioning she admitted her contract also includes the option of a bonus worth up to 35% of her basic salary every 12 months.

Ms Kerins — who throughout the meeting repeatedly stonewalled on questions and claimed she was under no obligation to reveal the rates — said since January 2010 she has “voluntarily” declined to accept bonuses.

The senior official claimed she “doesn’t know” what extra payments she received in the years prior to 2010, a stance ridiculed by Independent TD Shane Ross, but insisted she “never received” the 35% figure.

Under questioning from Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou McDonald over her €240,000 basic salary, Ms Kerins also failed to explain why the sum is €6,000 higher than stated in 2011.

However, she said an independent review by Towers Watson, which decided the pay level based on the “market median” for groups of Rehab’s size, would suggest her basic salary should in fact be 20% higher.

Ms Kerins would not clarify questions by Mr Ross on what her salary was in previous years after it emerged the Towers Watson report was drawn up at the start of 2014 — the same time as Rehab delayed publishing her salary for a month for unknown reasons.

Despite stating during the hearing that she and other managers have had cutbacks, the leading disability charity sector official told PAC chair John McGuinness she was not willing to discuss the matter any further.

Ms Kerins claimed she did not know the pension entitlements and previous pay rates of her predecessor, long-time senior Fine Gael adviser Frank Flannery, who failed to attend the meeting despite being requested to do so.

Ms McDonald said the comparison between executives pay and that of lower level Rehab workers who faced a 10% pay cut in 2010 was akin to “some people being more equal than others”.

She said one group was told their salaries had to be benchmarked with public pay levels, while a “hardline” view was taken that the other group was entirely unlinked.